


Million Dollar Man

by jarbelle



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: M/M, no additional tags cause no spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 09:03:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18870049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jarbelle/pseuds/jarbelle
Summary: Minhyuk doesn't know how you get over someone as dangerous, tainted, and flawed as Hyungwon.





	Million Dollar Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [joohyuk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/joohyuk/gifts).



> this is for joohyuk!! who got the reference in my previous fic ;; and since i promised the first person to get the reference i'd write them a hh one shot, i did it kasjdlkajsdlasd
> 
> im sorry it took so long, the editing for this one was super time consuming and IM SO SKAJDLSD SORRY IN ADVANCE IF IT DIDNT TURN OUT THE WAY YOU WANT IT ill see you at the end

Minhyuk’s eyes wander as he sits on a stool on the stage.

His bracelets weigh heavy on his wrists, his pendant burns under the bright lights. His jacket embellished with rhinestones that glimmer on stage is just weighing down his shoulders.

It’s normal to get nervous on stage. He’s only human after all. Even after years and years of singing, he still gets nervous and it’s normal, he keeps telling himself.

He sees the usual faces, under the colored lights-red, blue-the regular customers of such expensive bar he sings for every few nights. He sees the bartender Hoseok, who nods at him.

And he also sees a familiar face in the back, staring at him from the darkness and it’s fine. He comes every time Minhyuk performs. An old face, an old flame. Just another one of the spectators now. It’s no trouble if nothing happens, men in badges and hats have told him, obviously threatened with something Minhyuk thinks he is familiar with too. Hoseok told him if he ever even crosses the bar he’d have him to deal with. That was at least, a comfort for Minhyuk.

Minhyuk fidgets with his fingers as the piano sounds throughout the now quiet bar.

And he sings.

Tries not to look into the darkness, ignoring the pair of eyes that are staring hard at him. Moves his gaze to the counter instead, where Hoseok serves a customer a glass of scotch.

Leather gloved hand reaches for the glass and Minhyuk catches the person’s eyes.

Round in the dimness of the place, soft under dark bangs, unquestioning even with how Minhyuk is visibly fretting on stage, belting out the usual notes with a slight shake.

A new, curious face.

The person drinks, eyes never leaving him, that Minhyuk has to look away.

He doesn’t look at the same direction ever again, even after he finishes his performance, quickly walking off the stage just so he wouldn’t be in the light. Where he can be seen clearly. He hides in the back, away from any customers and Hoseok finds him, a towel draped over his shoulder.

“Hey,” he calls, smiling at the singer. “That was a great performance.”

Minhyuk sees the glass in Hoseok’s hand, accepts it into his own and nods appreciatively. “Thank you.”

“Remember, it’s normal to be nervous,” Hoseok offers him, probably noticing how Minhyuk is still a little stiff, a little out of it. “You’re getting better every time.”

Minhyuk sighs, drinks. “The manager’s going to stop calling me if I can’t get back on my feet—”

“You will,” Hoseok cuts him off, standing in front of him. His stare is hard, believing and Minhyuk feels like saying no, it’s impossible but Hoseok makes it really hard to say so. He’s incapable of counting how many times Hoseok has helped him up to his feet. “If it makes things better, Kihyun said he’ll come perform with you tomorrow night.”

Slowly, Hoseok reaches to squeeze his shoulder, and Minhyuk tenses, seeing the gesture coming from someone as strong looking as Hoseok. Immediately the bartender seems apologetic as he pulls his hand back to himself. And Minhyuk relaxes, smiles a thank you at him. He would greatly appreciate Kihyun, the other singer to come and perform with him. It’s less nerve wracking when he has a friend on the stage with him.

“I gotta get back to the bar,” Hoseok murmurs at him, smiling reassuringly at the singer.

Minhyuk nods and watches his retreating back, his big arm pushing the heavy curtain separating the staff area and the actual bar aside. When Hoseok gets to the bar, already taking orders, he sees the gloved hand around the glass again.

The pair of seeing eyes finds him, and seems to pierce right into him, even through the small gap between the curtain and the wall that he almost jumps, quickly averting his eyes and walking away.

Quickly, he changes out of his performance outfit, the changing room quiet without the other singer. Kihyun said he couldn’t come because of some personal matters. Minhyuk thinks it’s because he’s fighting with Hoseok. He heard the arguments a few nights ago during closing, behind the curtains, trying not to shake at the volume.

It was just an ordinary argument between two lovers, but it really affected Minhyuk more than he had ever wanted it to, as he had wondered how Kihyun could raise his voice at Hoseok without fearing consequences and how Hoseok let him.

It’s strange.

He stays in the waiting room, wondering if he should take off his makeup now, or do it once he’s home. And he dreads the journey home. He doesn’t really like the city at night.

Despite the people, sometimes it gets too quiet. Sometimes it’s too loud.

He can’t seem to decide as he just mindlessly goes through the news on his phone. Some scandals. Some athlete winning something. A singer who has been missing for quite some time found to have committed suicide and people are saying that’s impossible. The family asks for investigation, said the death was staged. Evidences say otherwise.

He could wait for Hoseok until he finishes his shift, but he doesn’t think it’s a good idea to keep asking for company when he’s done so too many times. Besides, his now empty place saved for himself is safe enough, he convinces himself.

So he walks out through the backdoor, huddled in his coat. He leans against the wall in the darkness of the alley, the sky lightly drizzling and takes out a cigarette and his lighter.

It’s cold, he finds as he’s blowing smoke, finding Hoseok’s car parked nearby. The manager’s car is also parked behind it.

And it’s also quiet late at night like this. It’s where he finds the rare peace in the silence, watching the smoke floating under the small light above the bar’s door.

He finishes, and pushes both hands into his coat as he starts walking, thinking that a walk at night like this might calm him down of all the irrational thoughts.

And it’s a few blocks after that he thinks he hears footsteps behind him.

He immediately tenses. Steps almost faltering. Takes an unnecessary turn on instinct just to hear it follow him.

Somehow there’s a shudder that creeps up his spine, as a million thought races his mind and one of them is that he doesn’t dare to look back and he doesn’t dare to run. Because if he runs he’s getting caught.

He should have waited for Hoseok. He should have stayed there at the bar until closing.

The footsteps are heavy and Minhyuk feels tears filling his eyes, while his heart just pounds and pounds against his chest like two fists against a locked, crumbling door that he would try to hide behind. He picks up the pace of his walking at a thunderous speed because he’s already shaking, it won’t be long before he’s rendered immobile just from fear alone and he’s fumbling with his phone that he struggles to take out of his coat.

Praying for himself to remain calm, he goes for Hoseok’s number, fingers brittle like they would break when there’s suddenly a loud thud behind him.

He immediately freezes.

The phone is still in his hand. He’s barely breathing and he has to remind himself that he needs the oxygen.

It has turned eerily silent. Even his heart quietens down to favour his hearing and Minhyuk cranes his neck slowly, eyelashes wet and he finds a tall figure looming in the darkness over something.

A body on the ground.

“Do you realize this man has been following you?” The figure asks, just a silhouette in the darkness of the alley.

Minhyuk doesn’t know what to say. He recognizes the hand fixing the leather glove on the other.

“Do you know him?” The voice is soft, yet cold.

Minhyuk finally, _properly_ looks at the big, unconscious man on the ground. Dares to take a step forward. Another one. He’s not surprised to see the face. But still terrified to see it all the same. The face he’d always see in the dark.

“Yes,” he whispers, taking a deep, shaky breath. He stares at the closed eyes, that had always been filled with fire when they looked at Minhyuk. “I know him.”

“He was trying to get to you, so I—” The person in front of him abruptly stops.

Minhyuk has to tear his eyes off the man on the ground, and look up at the silhouette.

“Are you okay?” The person asks softly, and Minhyuk thinks he whimpers, because the man takes a step forward into the light of the alley and he finally sees the person’s face. Large eyes so brilliantly clear and sharp even in the night, that aren’t so intrigued, but aren’t so bored either. Just still eyes. That stare at Minhyuk like he reads through Minhyuk. There’s an undecipherable expression on the man’s face, tall rounded nose and blankness upon plump lips. No smile, no frown either.

“I am,” Minhyuk nods quickly, trying to blink his tears away. Trying not to shake. “Th-thank you.”

The gloved hand reaches for him, and Minhyuk flinches when it grips on his stiff arm.

“I’ll call you a cab.”

Minhyuk couldn’t find it in himself to say anything, or do anything, except follow the man’s lead out of the alley, into the streets. He’s lost control on everything, just physically moving yet unable to think, to process things at the moment. Does the fear inside him show, he wonders. Because the man stays with him, calling a cab.

And he just stares at the asphalt. Stiff, tense. Unmoving.

When he gets into the cab, somehow it feels like he’s forgotten how he ended up there, including how the man pays for the ride with cash in a gloved hand.

“Where to, young man?” The driver asks, annoyed and Minhyuk thinks he’s been asking the same question for a while now, and Minhyuk’s only hearing it now.

He tells the man in the driver’s seat where to go, and looks out the car window.

The tall man, in the long coat and gloved hands had vanished.

And Minhyuk comes home hollow, locks every lock in the house, the extra ones Hoseok helped him install too, and then hides himself under his blankets, peering through the gaps at the empty dog house in the corner.

 

 

 

 

 

_Do not think you’re unreachable or untouchable, when you’re bathed in the lights on stage._

Minhyuk’s unsteady on his feet, hands clasped on the counter as he watches Hoseok read over the crumpled note in his hand. The one that he has found that morning. He must have missed it last night right next to his locker when he hurriedly left, placed neatly with a small bouquet of red roses that he has tossed into the nearest trash can. Sometimes they arrive at his front door, the roses, a particular shoe box Minhyuk will never forget. Just another one among the many other things.

“He gets away with so much,” Hoseok hisses, hands squeezing the life out of the paper in his hand and Minhyuk tries not to stare. “Just because the police is scared of him.”

Minhyuk doesn’t say anything, feeling tired.

“We’ll send you home,” Hoseok tells him then, worried gaze casted on Minhyuk that strangely feels just like the bright lights that burns his pendant on the stage.

“Or you can stay at our place for a few nights,” Kihyun offers. He’s next to Minhyuk, and he could only pat Minhyuk on the arm as a gesture to comfort. His touch has always been gentle that Minhyuk doesn’t cower away.

But Minhyuk doesn’t like staying over at their place. He’s done so many times, and for some reason it makes him feel worse. Nothing ever happened anyway. It’s all in his head. It’s unnecessary. Burdensome.

And he never told them about the night the man followed him in the dark alleys. And how there’s another man who has rendered him unconscious, with whatever he had done with his gloved hands anyway. It doesn’t feel real, like it never happened. Because the man with the leather gloves never came back to the bar, and Minhyuk thinks maybe he wasn’t real. Maybe those large gleaming eyes, and the soft looking lips, and long thin fingers covered in leather weren’t real. Maybe what happened that night wasn’t real either.

Hoseok told him he doesn’t remember any customer with gloved hands when he asked him about it. And when Hoseok asked why, he couldn’t tell the bartender why either. Because while he remembers the tall, lean man with his long dark coat, he also doesn’t remember much of that night. Like the memories just cracked and the pieces aren’t together anymore.

“I’ll consider it,” he tells them, and hopes that at the end of the night he’d feel better, less scared. And he’d just come home and sleep the unwanted thoughts away.

He goes to sing on stage, nervous as usual. And when he lets his eyes wander, there is no face in the dark. But there are gloved hands on the bar.

So after the performance, he musters the best of courage he has left, carefully walks over to the lean man almost hunching over his drink. Hoseok is somewhere else, serving other customers.

The man with the leather gloves wasn’t an imagination, after all.

That glass in his hand is real. That person sitting on that stool is real. His coat crumpled from the way he’s sitting.

He doesn’t know why he feels relieved at the thought of him being real. An actual human being, flesh and blood, long black coat and leather gloves.

“Thank you, for the other night,” he starts, licking his dry lips. His throat is dry too, after singing.

The man turns his head, and looks at him. Minhyuk knows he recognizes him, but his expression doesn’t change.

He drinks. “Great performance,” He says in that soft voice of his, like he doesn’t want other people to hear him.

Minhyuk fidgets with his fingers, and he doesn’t know why the words just tumble clumsily out of his mouth as he looks everywhere but the man in front of him. “He was my ex.”

The man doesn’t react, but Minhyuk feels him listening.

“He was a brute,” Minhyuk whispers, remembering red, and purple. And some blues too. “Couldn’t shake him off even after I left.”

He rubs at his arms consciously, remembering blood and blurry visions. Ringing. Sirens.

“So thank you,” He tells the man. “I don’t know what he would have done that night.”

And then he turns away, and leaves. Feeling a huge weight lifted off him somehow, as he waits for Hoseok to finish with the closing in the waiting room, with Kihyun humming a soft mellow tune beside him. Kihyun doesn’t touch him. Just sits there next to him. And Minhyuk tells him he’ll be fine if they just send him home.

 

 

 

 

The man with gloved hands was no more after that.

There were no more notes with roses too. And somehow no face in the dark. No staring eyes that makes Minhyuk wary on stage. Not after the night Minhyuk finds the silhouette standing over the unconscious person.

The alleys are quiet. The drizzling rain just sounds like calming, echoing whispers in the night.

Minhyuk moves on, tries not to think about anything but in improving for his performance, learning new songs with Kihyun. Drinks with Hoseok sometimes.

 During the day he goes about his usual activity and errands. Watches people walking their dogs at the park when he doesn’t have anything else to do.

On the weekend he goes shopping for grocery alone.

It’s therapeutic, because when the face in the dark didn’t return, it finally feels like he has a chance to forget about it.

And he’s mulling over the pastries at a coffee shop on his way back, when he feels eyes on him. His instinctual response was to stiffen, but he looks to his side and finds a familiar face, in the bright bakery. A face that he’s only seen in the dark.

The hands are bare, holding a tray with a cinnamon roll on it.

And the bare hands are fascinating somehow that Minhyuk just stares at the bare skin, before he could manage a small smile of recognition for him.

The man is dressed casually for the first time Minhyuk is seeing him. Just a white shirt and black pants.

“Groceries?” The man asks, his voice still soft that Minhyuk feels like he’s the only one who could hear him in the coffee shop.

He nods, looking down at the bags in his hands. “Pastries?” he asks in return.

The man looks down at the tray in his hand, and a small smile graces his lips that Minhyuk only blinks at it. He thinks it’s the first time he’s seen the man smile even if just a little. Perhaps an encounter during the day is just something different.

“Is that for your meal, later?” The man asks again, his small smile now amused at the sight of some instant noodles in Minhyuk’s bag.

Minhyuk turns red, letting out a forced laugh. “Yeah,” he says anyway.

The man looks down at his own bag in his one hand. Minhyuk sees some ingredients for pasta.

“I was just getting coffee,” The man says. “Would you like to get coffee too?”

And Minhyuk stares at him, and he stares back. And he looks so different in the bright light of the day. He looks so brilliantly _kind_ bathed in the natural light of the place.

So Minhyuk trusts his gut instincts that remind him of the time the man led him to the streets and waited with him for the cab. He says sure.

The man takes his tray of pastries, asks him what he’d like to drink. And Minhyuk feels his head going blank as he answers latte, and sits at a table, waiting for the man to line up and order, and pay.

He takes out his wallet to pay for his things, but the man shakes his head, takes a seat in front of him, setting down their pastries and coffees.

He got them coffees to go.

Minhyuk doesn’t know why he’d expected their coffee to be served in those white ceramic cups.

The man is poised, sits straight in his chair, and wipes his hands delicately with a napkin before he takes a bite into his cinnamon roll. Minhyuk stares at the way some of the cinnamon sugar sticks to the corner of his plump lips, then looks down at his latte with no art because his coffee’s to go and it’s covered with a plastic lid.

A shame. He has always liked to see what the barista would draw on his latte.

Sometimes they’re leaves, sometimes a heart that fills the surface, and sometimes roses, stars, swirls. One time they drew a puppy for him and Minhyuk cried in the middle of the café.

Truthfully he’s not sure what to say now that he’s seated with the man at one table. He has many questions; his name, his age, his occupation, where he’s from, why has he never seen him before, is he new in town?

“I just wanted to say I like your singing,” The man suddenly says, licking the sugar off his lips. He looks at Minhyuk, holds his stare, and his eyes are so _different_ , Minhyuk keeps thinking how different they are compared to the nights where he’s covered in his dark long coats and wearing his leather gloves.

“Oh,” Minhyuk only manages to rasp out, takes a sip of his hot coffee.

“Minhyuk,” The man says, like he’s testing his name on his tongue. His cinnamon sugary tongue.

“Yes,” Minhyuk answers.

“I’m glad I got your name right when they announced it on stage.”

Minhyuk nods. It takes him a long second to finally ask, “And you are?”

The man drinks his coffee, lets the question hang in the air for a second there, like he’s contemplating his name, but at the same time expecting the question already. “Hyungwon,” He finally tells Minhyuk.

“Hyungwon,” It’s Minhyuk’s turn to test his name.

“Yes.”

And Minhyuk smiles. Such a fitting name, for such a kind face.

He used to like getting to know new people. Make new friends. He likes chatting, likes to ask questions and likes to have them answered.

But things happened, the purple and blues, to the point that he couldn’t even ask questions—let alone sing— because he lost his voice once and Minhyuk feels like that person is just no more now. He’s just being careful now anyway, just cautious. He’s not broken. No he’s not.

“What do you do?” He asks slowly then, because what could a man like Hyungwon do for living?

Minhyuk sings. Does part time jobs in the past, but these recent times there were too many shakings in public and uncalled tears so Hoseok and Kihyun told him to take it easy, work where they can look over him. So he took it easy. The money doesn’t come easy this way, but he’s taking it easy. Like how his friends want him to. They want nothing but good things for him, so he trusts them with his life.

Hyungwon shrugs then, slowly, _languidly_ as he wipes his hands thoroughly with the napkin again. His cinnamon roll is finished. Minhyuk wonders how his fingers feel like, bare and not covered with leather gloves.

The thought that he’s thinking about that kind of thing scares him, so he focuses on his coffee again.

“I do things here and there,” Hyungwon answers almost curtly, he’s not looking at Minhyuk. “Freelance stuff.”

Minhyuk nods. Of course such a good looking, tall man would be able to freelance as he likes. “That’s interesting,” He mutters emptily.

“Your singing is more interesting,” Hyungwon then tells him, and when Minhyuk catches his kind eyes, he smiles, like he really wants Minhyuk to know that.

Minhyuk wants him to know how his heart skipped a beat at those words.

“You’re always welcomed to watch my performances,” Minhyuk tells him without thinking, and almost blushes at his own words.

Hyungwon nods. “I will.”

And they finish their coffee. Minhyuk throws the paper cup he used into the trash can, Hyungwon takes his with him. They say goodbye outside of the coffee shop, and Minhyuk feels a little safer walking home, although he can’t quite pinpoint why.

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon does come.

He’s back in his long dark colored coats. His leathered gloves.

They don’t talk, just exchange glances while Minhyuk sings. And he leaves after.

There is still no face in the dark returning, and Minhyuk feels more relaxed on stage. He thinks he’s less nervous now, he’s not scared of the stage and the lights like the first time he returned to the stage.

Sometimes Minhyuk and Hyungwon do meet coincidentally at the same coffee shop. Exchange a few words, get coffee.

And Minhyuk finds himself looking forward to those meetings, lingering at the place when Hyungwon’s not there, going home disappointed.

And feeling a little happy when he’s actually there, and it’s the cinnamon roll again. And they talk of nothing in between sips of coffee in paper cups. Minhyuk can’t keep up with the latte art anymore.

On the other hand, Hoseok still doesn’t remember any customer with leather gloves.

“He’s always there, sitting at the bar,” Minhyuk tells him and Kihyun before the opening of the bar.

Hoseok shrugs, Kihyun too.

“Are you sure he’s even real?” Kihyun asks almost teasingly, but at the same time worriedly.

Minhyuk pursed his lips, thinking hard about it. “Yes he is, his name is Hyungwon, and we meet at the coffee shop sometimes.”

Kihyun nods thoughtfully when Minhyuk tells them his encounters with the lean and tall young man who likes cinnamon rolls.

“Is he… safe though?” Hoseok asks softly, tender gaze fixed on Minhyuk.

Minhyuk stares at him, and blinks. Hyungwon has always been nice. He talks really softly, and smiles really gently. He doesn’t seem like he’d hurt a fly, let alone anyone.

Except that one time when there was an unconscious body on the ground. That man who had been following Minhyuk. At times, Minhyuk still questions if that really happened.

“He’s not—not everyone’s like that, Hoseok,” He murmurs instead, averting the other two’s gaze on him. Trying not to think of that one night he’s not even sure was real.

And he hears Hoseok smiles in relief. “That’s good then, he sounds like a good person.”

“I’ll tell you which one is him when we get on stage,” Minhyuk says to Kihyun, already walking to the back of the bar, into the waiting room to start on his makeup.

And Hyungwon’s not there that night. Kihyun looks at him expectantly on stage.

And he isn’t there the following night either, and the next one, and the next.

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon is at the coffee shop on the weekend.

He’s seated at the window, his coffee to go already on his table as he’s reading over a book in his hands.

Minhyuk feels a little relieved to see the man. He’d been a little confused when Hyungwon hasn’t come back to the bar. It’s weird, when he thinks about it because Hyungwon presence is too unpredictable. He doesn’t know why it bothers him too.

Minhyuk orders his latte. Pays with his card. They drew him some exotic flower that he couldn’t name, and naturally sits at the table.

Hyungwon looks up from his book almost coldly, and Minhyuk thinks he melts a little when Hyungwon expression warms once the recognition sets in. It’s always somehow nice to see how Hyungwon’s default, rigid expression warms at the sight of Minhyuk. It might not mean anything. But Minhyuk knows it’s a nice sight.

And Minhyuk wants to ask why he hasn’t come for his performances the past few nights, but felt like he was being entitled by asking that. Not like he has the right to either.

“What are you reading?” he asks instead.

“Some story,” Hyungwon simply answers, placing the closed book on the table, cover down.

Minhyuk takes that simple answer, finds that Hyungwon like to give simple ones, doesn’t elaborate and it makes Minhyuk feel safe. He doesn’t know why. Maybe because while Hyungwon doesn’t give him explanations for anything, he doesn’t expect Minhyuk to give him any either. And Minhyuk’s comfortable that way. To keep things above the surface, but not really either, because sometimes Hyungwon makes him want to say things that are buried deep under foam drawing of an exotic flower.

Like his violent ex.

“What’s that?” Hyungwon asks, staring at the drawing of a flower on Minhyuk’s latte.

“I don’t know the name, but it’s pretty,” Minhyuk chuckles a little, finding it a shame to ruin such a beautiful coffee art.

“Do you like those? Those drawings on your latte?” Hyungwon asks.

Minhyuk nods. “They come up with different drawings every time, you know.”

He looks at Hyungwon, and Hyungwon gives him a small smile.

 

 

 

 

The next time they meet, when Hyungwon orders, he gets Minhyuk’s latte in those white cups. He gets his own to go. And takes the empty paper cup with him as they separate, like usual.

 

 

 

 

On a Saturday, when they see each other at the coffee shop, Hyungwon invites him for dinner instead, lifting the bag of groceries he has in one hand. It looks heavy, but Hyungwon just smiles at him.

Minhyuk says sure, and trusts his gut instincts to follow Hyungwon into a cab, and to his apartment.

The apartment complex is an expensive one, that Minhyuk feels a little intimidated to step into the elevator with Hyungwon, wondering if they allow pets in the building. And Hyungwon just stands still in the elevator, straight and looking up at the numbers counting up to 4.

He follows Hyungwon to his apartment, watches him entering his passcode and listens to the ringing of the door as he holds it open for Minhyuk to get in.

Somehow the apartment feels quieter than the quiet, empty corridor outside.

Hyungwon says he wants to cook pasta as he brings the groceries into the kitchen, Minhyuk staring at the closed door behind him, looking at the many locks on the door. And Minhyuk asks him if he can help.

Hyungwon says no, sit down and wait while he chops these onions expertly. Yet his eyes get teary anyway, and Minhyuk laughs.

Hyungwon chuckles. It’s rare.

So Minhyuk sits at the table after insisting that he gets the plates and utensils ready, reading over the bottle of wine Hyungwon has placed on the table.

_1834._

“I’m not good at it, but I’ve been practicing,” Hyungwon tells him, serving the food.

“You were especially good with the knife,” Minhyuk smiles at him, having watched how Hyungwon has chopped things with smooth movements in the kitchen. Sometimes Minhyuk cuts his own finger just chopping carrots. He wonders if he should tell Hyungwon that, if he would be amused by the information.

He doesn’t.

They eat.

And it’s bland. So when Hyungwon asks him how is it, Minhyuk has to laugh and tell him the truth.

He thinks Hyungwon blushes, dressed in a casual dark blue sweater, hair a little messy from cooking. He smiles, and Minhyuk wants him to smile wider. Wonders what would make him do that.

“I’ll do better next time,” he tells Minhyuk.

Minhyuk stares at him, a little surprised at the thought of next time. He nods though, and feels a little elated that Hyungwon implied there will be a next time.

After the meal, Hyungwon walks him down the building, and calls him a cab. Said he’s paying for it, and get back home safe.

 

 

 

 

Minhyuk tells Hoseok and Kihyun about everything. The now dinners—no more coffee shop, the food they cooked up together once Hyungwon allows him to help and the way Hyungwon gets awkward while cooking but chops things just fine.

But they don’t seem as excited as Minhyuk is.

They ask him what he knows about Hyungwon in the empty bar while the manager gets ready for opening.

“He’s good looking, so he freelances,” Minhyuk tells them over the sound of the tv reporting the death of an important government official. “He likes cinnamon rolls. And his coffee to go.”

(Yet he doesn’t tell them that Hyungwon calls from an private number, that Minhyuk feels like he has no right to ask about. Why does it matter when he could hear Hyungwon’s voice, saying he wants to meet him because he’s found a new recipe for a pasta dish?)

Kihyun and Hoseok exchange looks over the bar. They sigh.

The chief of police says they will hold a tight investigation on the case at a conference on the tv.

Minhyuk knows his friends worry. They were the ones who held back the man screaming in the hospital saying he wanted to see Minhyuk. The ones who took the shoe box from him when he couldn’t let go and buried it deep under the ground because Minhyuk was rendered powerless, terrified down to his bones of everything, even for the very friends who were protecting him.

And Hyungwon.

They _don’t know_ him. Hyungwon doesn’t come for his performances anymore, nor the coffee shop; he’s just at his apartment now. Sometimes he asks Minhyuk to buy the ingredients for dinner before coming.

And Minhyuk appreciates his friends worrying over him, but he’s never felt so safe, and maybe happy for so long.

“We’re happy you know,” Kihyun manages a smile for Minhyuk. “You seem to like him a lot.”

Minhyuk looks down at his nails. He thinks he does. Hyungwon is so kind, and gentle. He thinks he even wants to learn to bake cinnamon rolls just so he could give them to Hyungwon.

But at the same time it’s a scary thing.

He likes people too easily. That was his flaw. What brought the sirens and violence.

Yet there’s a little voice inside him that tells him— _convinces_ him, Hyungwon isn’t like that.

_He’s not._

“I do like him,” Minhyuk finally admits. “And I promise, I’ll take it slow, I’ll get to know him better.”

His two friends give him an assuring nod.

 

 

 

 

Little did Minhyuk know, getting to know Hyungwon better falls on a Friday night, when he comes early to the apartment by himself for dinner that Hyungwon has invited him on the day before.

And the door’s unlocked.

It’s open slightly.

He pushes it open warily—the heavy wooden door swinging silently— and he’s wondering if it’s open because Hyungwon’s expecting him.

Maybe Hyungwon does. But what Minhyuk sees surely isn’t what Hyungwon was expecting.

There are things thrown here and there. Toppled coat rack, broken cups. It’s messy.

And Minhyuk doesn’t know what he expected when he turns to look into the kitchen. Because Minhyuk immediately freezes at the sight before him, gasping loudly the bag in his hand with the ingredients for cooking drops, and fruits came rolling across the floor, coming to halt only when it runs into the head of an unconscious, bloodied man on smooth wooden floor.

 There is so much blood. The man is big, unmoving, dressed in black suit. Minhyuk can’t take his eyes off him. There are knives jutting out of the man’s back, the fabric of his suit torn with many other stab marks.

So much blood, he keeps thinking. Unmoving. Sirens.

_Wait, there are no sirens._

He looks up at Hyungwon standing over the man with wide, unbelieving eyes, and Hyungwon’s dressed in a black suit, leather gloved hands slowly lifted into the air as he just stares at Minhyuk, cold and still.

His gaze is piercing, dishevelled hair poking into his eyes yet he doesn’t blink.

And Minhyuk couldn’t help but realize how out of place Hyungwon looks in that apartment. In that kitchen where Minhyuk has seen him cook so many times, where he washes the dishes, where he chops things, usually dressed in his comfortable sweaters.

Minhyuk can’t get any words out of his mouth at the muddled thoughts in his head. The shattering old thoughts of Hyungwon and his gentle ways over dinner. And Minhyuk’s trembling, but at the same time he’s so stiff he can’t move at the sight he’s seeing.

Hyungwon’s left hand is bleeding, he realizes, blood dripping onto the floor, his leather glove slashed open, and the other hand holding the weapon tightly. It’s the kitchen knife he’s cooked with countless of times.

It gleams so brilliantly red in the lights.

And it’s so deathly quiet, except for Minhyuk’s struggle to breathe. There’s a glint in Hyungwon’s eyes when he finds Minhyuk’s stare stuck on the bloody knife, and slowly, so slowly and gently like his usual movements, he places it on the kitchen counter, where a half eaten cinnamon roll lies on a plate.

Hyungwon just holds his stare on Minhyuk, eyebrows now furrowed, and lips tense. None of that small gentle smile. Just cold, hard stare with equally cold, hard frown.

Minhyuk’s scared. He’s so scared.

His trembling foot takes a step back and it makes Hyungwon reach for his glove, slowly taking it off his uninjured hand.

And the sight of the bare hand renders Minhyuk severely breathless. Doesn’t know what it can do. But wondering of the possibilities, and wondering if he’d make it out of the place as he turns, wanting to run. To escape before anything else.

But Hyungwon’s already at the door.

Shutting it close quietly with calculated speed, while still never tearing his eyes off Minhyuk, and Minhyuk whimpers, almost stumbling back when he realizes his only exit is blocked.

He feels like a dumb prey. A cornered one with no hope of survival because truthfully he’s weakened with fear. He didn’t even hear Hyungwon moving. Hyungwon was quick, and Minhyuk is scared of what he’s capable of. He had learned the hard way to never underestimate what a loving hand could do to him. And he doesn’t want another lesson.

So he shakes his head, eyes just pooling with tears.

He looks at the dead body on the floor. The knives. The stab marks on the person’s back. The bloody knife that Hyungwon has chopped so many onions with on the kitchen counter.

“Please don’t…” he begs, closing in on himself, and sobbing when Hyungwon nears him. Looking at Hyungwon, looking at the dead man. Looking at Hyungwon, looking at the murder weapon.

But Hyungwon just shushes him, pulls him closer by the shoulder with his one fine hand.

Minhyuk’s coaxed to look away from the dead body, and Hyungwon pulls his trembling form against his chest. While his injured hand just hangs on his side, bleeding profusely.

The gentle, good hand caresses his hair, the back of his neck— just the way he likes it, and he doesn’t know how Hyungwon knows that. He’s held so tightly that even if his knees buckle he knows Hyungwon won’t let him fall.

Minhyuk cries.

Because with the red on the floor, on the fresh tangerines, and the way Hyungwon is soothingly shushing him with a securing arm around his shoulders; strangely he just doesn’t feel scared anymore.

He feels _safe_.

So he keeps crying.

 

 

 

 

Minhyuk’s looking over the first aid kit Hyungwon has brought into the living room, tears ceased a while ago after Hyungwon’s gentle shushes. When he urgently realized he needed to stop the bleeding he asked for the kit and Hyungwon wordlessly let him sit and wait as he brought it out of the kitchen.

Minhyuk tries not to look at the dead body still in the kitchen.

Hyungwon painstakingly takes off his torn glove as Minhyuk takes out the things he needs to clean the wound.

And while Hyungwon’s face scrunches in pain as he cleans the wound, Hyungwon doesn’t say anything. His rather empty eyes are just looking into the distance, hand on Minhyuk’s lap. He seems used to it, the sting of a wound, that Minhyuk’s somehow glad.

Hyungwon speaks when Minhyuk’s dabbing the wound with white cotton balls that is just a light shade of red now.

“He broke in.”

Minhyuk pauses, doesn’t look at him. He actually didn’t expect Hyungwon to explain so soon.

“I was just defending myself.”

Minhyuk nods. He knows that. He had been in the same position too once, just defending himself. That’s all he knew to do. People break into houses all the time too— and doors, Minhyuk’s thinking—so Hyungwon was just trying to protect himself.

“He tried to kill me. So I killed him first.”

It feels like Hyungwon wants Minhyuk to react, so Minhyuk looks at his face, and the small streak of splattered blood on his soft cheek, and the eyes that aren’t even looking at him.

He doesn’t know what he’s searching for in Hyungwon’s blank expression.

So he decidedly looks away again, and starts wrapping Hyungwon’s hand with a bandage, carefully and as gently as he could because he knows how much the injury must hurt, yet Hyungwon’s expression stays unchanging.

“Regardless, following protocol,” Hyungwon murmurs, swallowing a lump in his throat. “I’m supposed to get rid of any witnesses too.”

Minhyuk freezes. Even stops breathing. He’s not sure what that means.

Hyungwon doesn’t continue.

It feels like a long time that they just stay in the still silence.

So he resumes with bandaging Hyungwon’s hand, blinking and then focusing on the shape of the hand, the long fingers, just choosing to say nothing.

They stay in silence, until Minhyuk finishes with the bandage, and Hyungwon looks at his hand curiously after, like he’s never seen a bandage.

He then looks at Minhyuk, his expression now warm, not as cold as the one that he wore standing over the man he has killed.

“I have always wanted to kill someone,” Minhyuk suddenly says.

He doesn’t know why he’s saying this. Maybe it’s to tell Hyungwon that he understands, how it feels like, to want to kill another human being. Especially when it comes to protecting oneself. But it’s too painfully ironic for someone with Minhyuk’s past. What does he even know about protecting himself?

“But I never got the courage.”

Hyungwon just listens silently. His bandaged hand lay open on his own lap.

“And maybe that’s why I ended up bruised, and battered, every day.”

Minhyuk feels the hot tears pooling in his eyes. And it’s the anger, the fury of how he could have let that happen to himself, how another man has broke him so badly he had thought he deserved all those beatings and the colors that painted his skin once upon the time. It was so ugly. It was so painful.

So he holds Hyungwon’s hand, lips trembling when he feels the fingers holding his in return.

“I hope he dies,” He whispers then, feeling the heat of all the anger inside himself pooling in his chest and lifts his gaze to meet Hyungwon’s waiting one.

There are no unwanted letters or notes anymore. No face in the dark. No nothing. The man has completely disappeared.

And looking into Hyungwon’s eyes, Minhyuk doesn’t know why he seems to know something that Minhyuk doesn’t.

So he says firmly through gritted teeth, “I hope he’s _dead_.”

With the thought of that very man unconscious in the dark alley. What he could have done to Minhyuk that night if Hyungwon hadn’t come and intervened.

Hyungwon grips on his hand, despite the wound and bandage. His eyebrows furrow, his expression complex.

“Go home,” he tells Minhyuk after a second. “I’ll call you a cab.”

The statement makes his heart drop. Minhyuk feels so upset to hear those words. When Hyungwon has been bleeding, hair messy from a fight, his crumpled shirt stained with red and his house messy.

 “No,” Minhyuk shakes his head instead, looking over at the bloodied knife.

He doesn’t know why he had been so scared, when now instead of the cold, incapacitating fear, he feels like he doesn’t want to leave. There’s an inexplicable twisting feeling in his chest, that feels like a relief, but at the same time is not either. It feels like relief, and urgency, and fear all once. It’s just so strange, and hard to define. It’s unnerving.

He just doesn’t know what he would do if he had found Hyungwon dead. If it wasn’t just a slashed hand instead.

So he surges forward, and presses his lips against Hyungwon’s.

 “I don’t want to leave,” He whispers then. “Not when I could have lost you.”

And Hyungwon’s eyes gleam in the proximity; his kind, kind eyes. He just stares at Minhyuk silently for a few seconds, unfathomable, before he leans in and kisses Minhyuk on the lips himself.

Minhyuk wants to cry at the way Hyungwon moves to hold him. So gently, so tenderly like he’s the wounded one.

He wants to tell Hyungwon that if Hyungwon holds him without hurting him like this, he’ll be the first one to ever did; despite the blood, despite the murder, despite the dead body in the same space.

And there are cinnamons in his teeth when Hyungwon pulls away, just gently cradling his face in his good hand. Minhyuk’s eyes are teary as he looks over Hyungwon, his breath ragged. It’s as if Hyungwon’s testing, if Minhyuk would walk away. But Minhyuk really doesn’t want to.

It’s just peculiar, he finds, how Hyungwon’s everything he should be scared of, yet strangely he doesn’t feel scared at all in this moment.

He’s just glad Hyungwon’s alive.

So he kisses him again, harder, feels Hyungwon’s arm tightening around the curve of his waist yet it doesn’t hurt, it’s just secure, and Minhyuk doesn’t know why it fills the back of his eyelids with tears when he shuts his eyes tightly.

When he pulls away to catch his breaths, feeling overwhelmed, Hyungwon just looks over him with a soft gaze. Minhyuk cups at his face with both of his hands, and wipes away the blood on Hyungwon’s cheek with a thumb. He doesn’t know whose blood it is, but knows that the color red doesn’t look nice on a face as kind as Hyungwon’s.

Hyungwon nears him again, and Minhyuk’s heart pounded, fingers clutching at Hyungwon’s crinkled shirt as he listens to Hyungwon’s soft breath right there close to his ear.

“I have to move the body,” Hyungwon whispers then, and he sounds almost apologetic, that Minhyuk just nods against his shoulder.

He doesn’t watch when Hyungwon moves the dead body into the guest bathroom easily, telling him not to worry about it, he’ll dispose it himself.

He cleans up the mess, even though Hyungwon tells him not to. And finds no other traces of blood even after Hyungwon has moved the body.

He doesn’t think he should ask what Hyungwon would do with the corpse, so he doesn’t. Just wipes away the blood, cleans the floor and gets rid of any other traces of violence in the apartment because that’s what he’s good at.

Hyungwon then walks into a room that looks like a study. Minhyuk hears him locking the door. And after a while, when Hyungwon comes out and relocks the door with a key, he realizes the room is off limits.

He scrubs harder at the blood on the floor. Shaking his head when Hyungwon tries to stop him. He thinks if Hyungwon doesn’t let him do this he’d be even more petrified.

Of the fact that it’s so obvious some sort of gore had occurred in that apartment.

Hyungwon doesn’t push it, so he leaves Minhyuk be.

He then hears Hyungwon showering as he puts away the cleaning supplies, finds some blood on his hands too, and tries to wipe it away on his sweater. But it doesn’t come off. And his sweater is also stained now.

When Hyungwon comes out of the shower, with his bandaged hand, damp hair, and clean shirt, he tells Minhyuk to clean himself up too. Gentle hand holding onto Minhyuk’s wrist as he guides him into his bedroom and into the bathroom.

He leaves Minhyuk to take a hot shower. And Minhyuk finds clothes for him to wear prepared by the sink. Hyungwon’s comfortable shirt and pants that he wears at home.

He comes out after silently, and Hyungwon’s sitting on his bed, looking thoughtful.

When he realizes Minhyuk’s out of the bathroom, he stands and comes close to Minhyuk, who tries not to tremble as Hyungwon just seems to tower over him with his focused gaze on Minhyuk.

Because now that they’re stripped off any evidence of the killing, it feels like the beginning again. Like he never knew that Hyungwon has blood on his hands.

Like Hyungwon never told him that he’s supposed to kill any witnesses.

“Go to sleep,” Hyungwon whispers.

“What about you?” Minhyuk asks, looking at him.

And Hyungwon’s eyebrows are furrowed, his gaze a little intense, like he doesn’t know what to do with Minhyuk. Yet it softens, warms.

Hyungwon nods, understanding the question.

So Minhyuk sleeps with Hyungwon under the covers, and savors the sense of security and safety it gives him.

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon tells him it’s what he does for living.

Freelance.

People hire him to kill someone. And he kills them. It’s simple like that. They pay him lots of money too.

That affords him this place, the languid lifestyle he leads in between jobs. They’re good amount of money.

He doesn’t say it, but Minhyuk knows it’s because he’s good at it. He said he always had to be quick and concise, so the marks wouldn’t even have the chance to know it, they’d already be dead.

Again, he doesn’t say it either, but Minhyuk thinks that’s the most merciful thing Hyungwon could do for his marks.

He tells Minhyuk things when Minhyuk comes for dinners and they lie on the bed together. Minhyuk asks him small questions, doesn’t want to intrude, and he knows Hyungwon tries his best to explain too. And spending more time in the apartment and with the owner, Minhyuk learns more about him that he wouldn’t have otherwise understood if he hadn’t seen the dead man in the apartment.

Hyungwon keeps weapons all over the apartment, and Minhyuk always has realizations over and over again the reality of what Hyungwon does, because there’s a gun in the bedside drawer when he checks while Hyungwon’s showering. And another one in the bathroom cupboard too.

There are too many knives in the kitchen when he’s cooking for Hyungwon. And there are a collection of leather gloves in his closet when Minhyuk’s looking for his shirts to wear.

It all makes sense now, as Minhyuk pieces everything together. How he’s so discreet at the bar that not even Hoseok remembers him, that it makes Minhyuk wonder if Hyungwon made sure he remembers Hyungwon instead. And it’s also how Hyungwon talks softly in public places, like he doesn’t want to be heard. But Minhyuk heard him just clear.

And he takes his coffee to go, never have meals outside except for some pastries packed in small paper bags.

Learns Hyungwon has been here and there, never staying anywhere long. When Minhyuk had looked at him confusedly he didn’t elaborate. Minhyuk wonders where he was, before he was in this city, sitting there at the bar with a drink in his gloved hand and Minhyuk singing on the stage.

Minhyuk also learns he doesn’t wear colognes. While Minhyuk always wears his.

He thinks his cologne sticks to Hyungwon, to his clothes, because he knows he’s seen Hyungwon cleaning up one morning—he cleans up a lot—and found Hyungwon lifting his shirt to his nose. Hyungwon took it off then, and threw it into the trash bag. Where all the other clothes were stuffed into. The ones Minhyuk recognized he’s worn before when he stayed over at Hyungwon’s place.

He had gone back to sleep after secretly witnessing that.

Hyungwon also tells him that because he has a lot of blood on his hands, there are other people hiring other assassins to get rid of him. And that was why Minhyuk had walked in to find a dead body in Hyungwon’s apartment.

A product of self defense.

“They have put money on my head,” Hyungwon whispers in the dead of night, like some kind of a bedtime story, arms around Minhyuk. His hand has almost completely healed. Minhyuk feels the healing wound grazing the bare skin of his back. “I don’t know why.”

Minhyuk wonders how much. And if it comes up to a million dollars.

It sounds unbelievable. That amount for such a pure, plain man who cooks his pasta bland and likes to have cinnamon rolls whenever he has the chance to. But when he looks at Hyungwon lying beside him, with his soft features, his slender fingers brushing against Minhyuk’s skin and his soft breaths ghosting over Minhyuk—maybe a million dollars is too little.

“I can’t see you tomorrow,” Hyungwon then tells him. “Stay home.”

Hyungwon would always advise for him to stay home. He does. Where else would he go aside from his usual routine if he can’t meet Hyungwon? So Minhyuk doesn’t say anything to that, understood that Hyungwon would disappear without a trace for a period of time like usual.

And maybe it’s because he’s hired to kill someone again.

There are times Minhyuk wonders if his ex had been one of Hyungwon’s marks. How it could be the reason Hyungwon noticed that he had been following Minhyuk. His ex hadn’t been just anyone, anyway. That was why it was hard to break free from the evil man.

But Minhyuk doesn’t ask. He doesn’t want to because he’d like to think Hyungwon tells him enough already without him having to ask.

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon’s back, and bruised and hurt when Minhyuk comes to his apartment one night. Yet he makes it seem like it doesn’t hurt when Minhyuk cups his face with both of his hands, worried.

“It was just an accident,” He tries to explain, and it’s strange, for an explanation to come unprompted from Hyungwon. And before Minhyuk could ask, he tells him, “But the job is done.”

Minhyuk looks into his eyes, that gleam in the dimness of his apartment. He nods, and wonders why Hyungwon’s eyes seem so hollow, so empty even if he has his arms full with Minhyuk.

Minhyuk kisses his cut lips, tastes the little blood that has gotten on his own—wishes they were cinnamons, and proceeds to help Hyungwon clean up his injuries.

It’s a routine he never forgets, knows how it stings to clean up a cut so he does it as carefully as he could for Hyungwon, who just stares into nothing. He takes Hyungwon’s hand, getting his attention, offering him a smile.

Hyungwon doesn’t smile, but Minhyuk assumes it’s because of the angry bruise on his cheek.

“Does this happen often?” Minhyuk murmurs, thinking of how despite Hyungwon’s hand had been slashed by the man who tried to kill him in his apartment, he was still unscathed anywhere else, alive.

Hyungwon shakes his head.

Minhyuk just frowns, feeling his whole being ache at the idea of someone out there hurting Hyungwon like this.

“Doesn’t this scare you?” Hyungwon asks lowly.

Minhyuk stops what he’s doing, looks at Hyungwon with disbelief. The question was unexpected, but it was tentative. He just doesn’t know why Hyungwon would ask it out loud.

“No.”

Hyungwon blinks, chooses not to say anything to that as he tears his gaze away from Minhyuk.

Minhyuk puts away the used cottons, takes out the bandaids. “Hyungwon,” He calls, looking down at the lid of the ointment he’s holding. His heart pounds at the idea of speaking out the question that had been occupying his mind for a while. “How did you start doing this?”

He feels Hyungwon staring at him now. It feels like Hyungwon doesn’t want to answer, so he just resumes cleaning up the other things now scattered on the table.

“I grew up in an orphanage,” Hyungwon starts, and Minhyuk gives him a questioning look yet gets a rather blank one in return. “With a close friend of mine. A brother.”

Minhyuk nods, focusing on the bandaids now. He places one on the cut above Hyungwon’s eyebrow, feeling Hyungwon’s eyes following him.

“He got involved with dangerous people.”

Another bandaid for the one on Hyungwon’s jaw.

“And one of them killed him when a drug deal went wrong.”

“Oh,” Minhyuk whispers, feeling his heart drop. He doesn’t know what to do with the bruise on Hyungwon’s face.

“So I killed him and the others.”

There’s an image of Hyungwon going berserk in Minhyuk’s mind. He’s never seen him go berserk before, of course, but it isn’t hard to imagine how a kind face can turn ugly in the midst of fury.

With that idea in his mind, his hands tremble, unable to look at Hyungwon any longer.

“Their boss found me then, and I thought he was going to kill me,” Hyungwon chuckles bitterly at the memory. “But he got me killing for him instead, to pay for the blood of his men that I had taken.”

“I’m sorry,” Minhyuk stutters out. “I’m sorry that your brother—”

“Changkyun.”

Minhyuk pauses.

“That was his name.”

“I’m sorry Changkyun was taken away from you.”

Hyungwon breathes, and places a hand on Minhyuk’s cheek. He coaxes him to look at him in the eyes on the couch.

And this time his eyes gleam almost brilliantly, Minhyuk feels a little wistfully high at the sight of it.

“After that, I’m just on my own,” He tells Minhyuk.

Minhyuk wants to ask him if he thinks he’s still on his own, even now, but he doesn’t get the chance to, because Hyungwon kisses him softly.

And under the bare hands that cup at his shoulder and the small of his back, Minhyuk just grows soft, and softer. He yields in the hold of the man who kills for living, feeling put together, like this is all he has ever wanted when most of the time any form of affection has always meant tearing himself to pieces.

Hyungwon pulls away, breathing heavily and forehead pressed against Minhyuk’s. “I’m sorry a man had dared to be so cruel towards you.”

There are tears pooling in Minhyuk’s eyes, listening to those words. Shutting his eyes tightly, he just shakes his head slightly to disagree.

Because it was all his fault. For thinking that those pain meant love. That to endure each and every hit was proof that he was loyal, a _testament_ of his commitment to a man he supposedly love. That a man broke him so well he thought he deserved it all. That it was love worth dying for, even if it was at the hands of the man who wasn’t supposed to have him dying in the first place because _this is proof I love you and no one else will ever fucking love you this much you have to remember that_.

He was broken. It was hard to admit.

When amidst the blaring sirens, he had been looking for the man who had him unable to move nor speak. Worrying what was going to happen to him when he was the one dying on the white mattress that he colors with the color red, which he had come to know very well like a close friend.

His lips tremble with words he doesn’t know how to speak, and he wonders how Hyungwon felt like losing Changkyun.

How awful it must be. That he loved so dearly, it had turned into love he was willing to kill for. That Hyungwon got to know the color red too. And keeps it close to him like his leather gloves.

Minhyuk dreams of them. The color red, purple, and blue. The paws in the shoe box that he never gets to hold anymore. Always there vivid in his dreams. Sometimes he doesn’t get to sleep because of it.

And he wonders if Hyungwon gets them too.

When Hyungwon envelopes him in his arms, Minhyuk hopes he dreams of Changkyun, alive, thanking him for getting rid of those cruel men who took his life.

 

 

 

 

Hyungwon has told Minhyuk the old scars on Minhyuk’s skin were ugly when he first seen them.

His face contorted into one that was in pain, like  _he_  was hurt, and Minhyuk strangely felt vulnerable without Hyungwon having to touch him.

Hyungwon said they’re ugly.

Because they shouldn’t be there in the first place.

And Minhyuk has never felt so understood, because he agrees.

 

 

 

 

Minhyuk jolts awake from sleep when he realizes Hyungwon’s hastily getting off the bed.

Sleepily, he gets up, rubbing his eyes as he finds Hyungwon at the window in his bedroom, peeking through the curtains, his eyes sharp.

“Hyungwon?”

Hyungwon lifts a hand to tell him to stay put on the bed.

“Hyungwon is something wrong?” Minhyuk asks worriedly as Hyungwon paces in the bedroom, pulling the curtains close tightly, looking down at himself and then walking to the bathroom door that’s slightly ajar, closing it tightly. And then locking it.

Minhyuk feels the familiar growth of fear inside him, as he gets off the bed.

“Don’t come near the window,” Hyungwon tells him.

So he walks to Hyungwon, and holds his hand, wary of how quiet the apartment is and a little confused of how Hyungwon is acting. Minhyuk feels a little lightheaded. Waking up so instantly from a deep sleep like that feels like waking up from his nightmares. He doesn’t get them as often now, when he thinks about it. Not when he’s asleep in Hyungwon’s bed.

Hyungwon walks out of the bedroom, immediately shaking his hand off and telling him to stay in the middle of the living room while he goes to the entrance door.

Everything’s locked, Minhyuk can see it.

But Hyungwon unlocks one, locks it again.

Unlocks, locks, unlocks, locks.

Until everything is again, locked.

“Hyungwon?”

Hyungwon doesn’t seem to hear him. He walks to the glass doors leading to the balcony, unlocks it and locks it too, pulls the curtains close and storms to the guest room. Minhyuk hears the curtains being pulled close too. He does the same thing in the study.

Minhyuk stands rigid in the middle of the place, feeling cold as he rubs at the goosebumps rising on his skin, just watching tensely as Hyungwon pulls the drawers open, checks on his knives, striding into the bedroom again.

Minhyuk follows, scared to be left alone.

Hyungwon sits on the bed, pulls the drawer on the bedside table open and takes out his gun.

“Hyungwon?” Minhyuk almost whimpers out through the pounding of his heart, fidgeting with his own shaky fingers by the door.

Hyungwon blinks, looks up at him. He stares at Minhyuk for a whole minute of deadly silence, before he blinks again.

“Everything’s okay,” He tells Minhyuk. He pats the empty space behind him. “Go back to sleep.”

Minhyuk climbs on the bed, taking the space. He watches from Hyungwon’s shoulder as he takes out the bullets, spins the cylinder, puts the bullets in again, spins it, loads it.

Unloads it again, weighs the bullets in his palm, spins it, puts them back.

“Is everything really okay?” Minhyuk asks him, resting his head against Hyungwon’s back.

He feels Hyungwon nodding. He can still hear the bullets in Hyungwon’s hand. So he just watches from Hyungwon’s hunched back, his nimble fingers loading and unloading the shiny gun in his hand in what’s left of the moonlight peering through the curtains.

And falls back asleep.

 

 

 

 

Minhyuk knew that wasn’t a rare occurrence.

There are nights where Hyungwon wakes up in cold sweat. Or sometimes he gets lost in his sleep he screams at nothing.

They don’t happen all the time when Minhyuk sleeps on the same bed as him, but it does put a question of how often it occurs in Minhyuk’s absences.

Because during the occurrences, sometimes he wakes himself up with a jolt and a defensive stance, and goes about his own apartment, pulling the curtains close, relocking the doors, checks on his knives and guns.

One night he tells Minhyuk –with shaky breathes and quivering voice like he just can’t stand it—he thinks he’s going crazy.

He’s actually asleep when he confessed, so Minhyuk wakes him up gently and Hyungwon opens his eyes with a jerk.

Minhyuk knows he didn’t mean to tell that to Minhyuk, but knows that he meant it too.

“Hey, I’m right here,” Minhyuk whispers to him.

Hyungwon just stares at him, like he’s not sure this is reality.

Minhyuk moves up to pull him into his arms, holding Hyungwon’s head into the crook of his neck. He caresses his hair, and brushes his fingers against the back of Hyungwon’s neck.

The other’s heavy breaths reverberates through his whole body, his heart must be pounding that it shakes his whole being. Minhyuk holds him tighter, thinking back to how Hyungwon held him together with his gentle shushing. And Hyungwon curls into him, taking a deep breath, calming down.

“Do they haunt you? Like they haunt me too?” He asks Hyungwon in a low voice.

Hyungwon nods against his neck, holding him too. His fingers clutches at Minhyuk’s back, almost desperately for anchor.

Minhyuk hums.

“It’s the first kill that stays,” He finds Hyungwon whispering. “The dying light in the eyes.”

“Does it even get easier?” Minhyuk finds himself asking.

“It does,” Hyungwon answers without hesitating. His fingertips dig into Minhyuk’s flesh. With no intention to hurt, just to cling onto him better. “It gets easier to kill.”

_But it must be harder to live._

With a price on his head, and with the ghosts in his head.

Minhyuk thinks Hyungwon is strong. So strong. While he thinks he’s going crazy at nights, Minhyuk sees him so calm and collected most of the time. It isn’t an easy thing to do, he had learned a long time ago. His movement almost always graceful, so gentle Minhyuk doesn’t think anyone else can be as gentle as Hyungwon is.

So he tells Hyungwon that. And Hyungwon sighs into his skin, holds him dearly.

He wishes he can just tell Hyungwon that he loves him too.

 

 

 

 

The next morning, while putting on his coat and gloves, Hyungwon asks if Minhyuk would stay there, until he comes back.

It’s a first. An unusual request that Minhyuk’s a little surprised. So he just takes a deep breath, looks up at Hyungwon in his dark attire and just looks at him. Hyungwon’s so unreal sometimes. With his lean figure, his litheness, and his tenderness that Minhyuk knows none of his marks ever came to know.

They will never know, because Hyungwon grants them the mercy of a quick death.

“I have to go to work,” Minhyuk tells him, sitting on the bed. He doesn’t even know how long Hyungwon would go away for. What kind of job he’s gotten now.

But he knows he needs to go out, be there at the bar when he’s needed, get on the stage, stand under the bright lights and sing.

Hyungwon stares at him then, silently, hands gloved. Minhyuk is incapable to decipher Hyungwon’s long stare sometimes, what he’s pondering about in that unfathomable gaze, that he learns maybe there are things that he would never understand when it comes to Hyungwon. He hates that.

At the same time it feels like there’s nothing he can do about it. He hates that too.

“Okay, I’ll call you a cab then.”

He sends Minhyuk off at the door of his place, with a promise he’d call after the job. Minhyuk waves goodbye, tells him to be safe.

 

 

 

 

“You’re deep in thoughts,” Kihyun remarks, finishing his makeup in the waiting room.

Minhyuk breaks out of his trance instantly, resumes putting on his blusher to not seem out of it. His eyes gleam in the mirror, and he wonders how he must have looked like on the stage, when Hyungwon first watched him sing.

“What is it?” Kihyun asks, sighing and turning to him.

Minhyuk puts down the makeup brush in his hand. Looks down at the eyeshadows prepared on the dresser.

He hasn’t seen Hyungwon for a week now. The last time they met Hyungwon told him he has to go away for a while, and he did say he’d call when he’s back. It aches to think about how much Minhyuk’s affected by not seeing him even for a few days.

“I just worry, about Hyungwon,” He tells Kihyun.

Kihyun takes a deep breath, crossing his arms together. “What happened?”

Minhyuk shrugs, glancing at Kihyun who’s all dolled up for the stage, and finds the need to fix his hair yet finding the attempt to distract himself futile. “He—He went away for his job. And it can get dangerous at times.”

The other singer hums, picking up his phone to check the time and puts it back down.

“I know he can take care of himself well, but I just… worry.”

Is he safe? Is he hurt? Would another one of those big men in black suit come and attempt to kill him for the price on his head?

“I understand that,” Kihyun replies. “What does he do anyway?”

Minhyuk sighs, shakes his head dismissively and thank god Hoseok pokes his head into the waiting room and calls them to get ready.

 

 

 

 

After work, Minhyuk stays back, erasing his makeup while Kihyun and Hoseok left early after finishing up.

He turns the lights off in the waiting room, taking his coat and getting ready to leave.

The alley is quiet, as usual. So he smokes a cigarette, appreciates the silence, realizing how much calmer he is when he’s alone at night like this ever since the man in the dark was now more. Minhyuk finds himself feeling fine walking through the alley, unlike the last time.

There’s a couple drunken men bickering in the alley he’s passing by, and he pushes his hands into his coat warily, hastening his steps as he tries to pass by them as quickly as possible.

“Hey,” One of the men calls.

Minhyuk doesn’t bother to show he took notice.

“Hey, you,” The man calls again. “Can you tell this man how wrong he is—”

“I’m sorry, I’m in a hurry,” Minhyuk just tells him, trying to just leave but the man’s stomping towards him and when he reaches his hand out to Minhyuk, Minhyuk clenches his fingers into fists, not sure what he’s ready to do.

But before the hand could even touch him, the man yelps in pain. His hand was parried away.

Minhyuk doesn’t know when this person in front of him arrives but the drunken man is pushed back, bumping into his equally drunk friend.

He flinches at the sound of the drunken men yelling as if bracing for an attack. And couldn’t look away as he just falls down with a loud thud with a swift hit. The second man manages to throw a punch, which just gets caught in a gloved hand and his momentum is used against him as he’s thrown on to the ground.

Minhyuk just stood there, watching how it all happened in mere seconds as the tall shadow looms over him.

Bare hand grabs at his elbow gently, turning him around and he almost jumps, if not for the person’s familiar height and stature walking next to him.

There’s a strange feeling pooling in Minhyuk’s chest at the sight of the person.

Hyungwon’s dressed in his long dark coat again, leather gloves black on another hand, the other one tucked in his coat pocket, and his eyes are covered by his hair.

“Don’t look back,” He says. “Come with me to my car.”

Minhyuk swallows a lump in his throat. His heart races in alarm, but with the familiar hand on him he feels grounded. So he nods subtly, and follows Hyungwon to his car.

There’s a black car parked at the side of the street, windows heavily tinted. Hyungwon walks him to the passenger seat, and swiftly with expert precision, puts on his one glove and pulls the door open. Minhyuk gets in quickly, and Hyungwon then gets in the driver’s seat, promptly driving away from the place.

Minhyuk’s heart is thumping, at the thought of seeing Hyungwon again, safe and alive, and also at the idea that something is happening. Which is why he’s in Hyungwon’s car, and Hyungwon’s still wearing his leather gloves on the steering wheel.

The car moves fast on the road, Minhyuk doesn’t know where they’re headed.

“Where is your friend’s place?” Hyungwon asks, cold eyes fixed on the road, Minhyuk finds, his fingers rigid around the steering wheel.

“I wanna go home,” He answers instead, holding onto the seatbelt tightly. “Or your place. Please.”

“No. Tell me where your friend’s place is,” Hyungwon merely replies.

Minhyuk stares at him. He doesn’t know if Hoseok and Kihyun would welcome his sudden arrival. “Hyungw—”

“You’ll be safe with them,” Hyungwon tells him.

_But I feel safer when I’m with you._

If Hyungwon feels Minhyuk’s stare boring a hole into his face, he’s certainly good at ignoring it.

So Minhyuk complies, tells him their address. The car goes round and round, everywhere in the town and Minhyuk doesn’t know if Hyungwon’s trying to lose someone or if he’s trying to lose Minhyuk.

Because when they arrived Hyungwon just tells him to go upstairs immediately and lock every doors and windows.

“Was it those drunken men?” Minhyuk asks in the silent car, gripping on the seatbelt. He has his gaze trained on his own lap.

Hyungwon just sighs a little.

“They were just drunk,” Minhyuk tells him in a low voice. “I don—I don’t have to be here. Hyungwon can we just go to—”

“It’s not _them_ ,” Hyungwon cuts him off, sounding a little angry, hands still tight on the steering wheel.

Minhyuk turns to him, and he still can’t decipher what is it that Hyungwon is thinking, and feeling with that guarded, complex expression of his.

Is it them?

The two of them. Is it the fact that they aren’t safe together? Because Hyungwon has a price on his head?

He feels his lips growing heavy, frowning and just generally upset. “What is it then?”

Hyungwon doesn’t answer, chewing on the inside of his mouth as he just looks ahead, refusing to look at Minhyuk.

“Is it because I can’t protect myself like you do?”

Hyungwon shuts his eyes briefly.

“That bothers you.”

His shoulders slump a little, feeling a little useless, powerless in this situation. Because if Hyungwon hadn’t come he doesn’t know what would have happened in that alley. Twice.

And Hyungwon wakes up in the nights, shields him from the moonlight from the window while he counts his bullets and loads them into his gun, while Minhyuk sleeps on the bed, unable to stay awake when the sound of counting bullets sounds like counting sheeps.

And maybe Hyungwon hates it.

Because he sighs again, looking cold, and hollow.

“Minhyuk.”

Minhyuk watches Hyungwon taking off one glove, sees the bare skin of the hand under the moonlight.

Yet he immediately flinches when he sees the hand reaching for him, shutting his eyes tightly as if bracing himself. For what, he doesn’t know. Maybe he’d expected a hit.

He doesn’t know why he’d expected one.

Maybe, as crazy of a thought as it is— _just maybe_ , Minhyuk would have felt better if he actually felt _something_ from that hand reaching for him.

And it’s silent for a second. Like Hyungwon is shocked.

And he is, because Minhyuk’s trembling when he feels his soft bare hand against his cheek, and his eyes open warily, sees Hyungwon staring at him with that _look_ again.

Like he doesn’t know what to do with Minhyuk.

And he’s the one who actually looks _scared_.

That’s terrifying, because most of the time people had always known exactly what to do to Minhyuk. How to hurt him. How to carry him into the ambulance while he was asking for the perpetrator of the violence with all the life he has left in him. How to stitch him up in the antiseptic smelling hospital. How to push him on to the stage again so he could sing.

So why doesn’t Hyungwon know what to do?

Why would he just pull Minhyuk closer by the nape of his neck, their foreheads meeting?

And Minhyuk’s taking in shallow, shaky breaths at the fingers brushing at the where his hair ends on his neck.

“For the time being, it’s just unsafe,” Hyungwon whispers.

Minhyuk doesn’t understand, but knows Hyungwon won’t elaborate, so he gets out of the car anyway. Because that’s what Hyungwon wants. And it was foolish for him to hope that Hyungwon would let him stay by his side tonight.

And he watches the car goes then, walks up, and rings the bell to Hoseok and Kihyun’s place.

“Are you okay?” Hoseok asks at the door, bewildered. Kihyun’s scurrying to his side, looking equally worried by the uninvited guest.

Minhyuk doesn’t realize he has been holding in tears, until he sees his friends’ worried eyes. “Can I stay here for the night?”

Kihyun moves past Hoseok, dressed in his pyjamas and takes Minhyuk into his arms.

And he just shakes in the circle of his friend’s arms.

They take him in, make him a cup of tea. They were watching the television, where there are reporters talking about the murder that happened earlier that day. And there’s footage of the neighbours telling the media that they don’t know how such a good family man could be so brutally murdered in his own garage. Minhyuk thinks they don’t have a clue what a well-presented man can be behind the closed doors of his house.

Kihyun and Hoseok don’t ask questions, knowing the answers already and Minhyuk’s glad they never found new questions to ask in order to seek new answers.

“Go to sleep,” Kihyun tells him after he’s disappeared into his bedroom with Hoseok, returning alone and placing a blanket and a pillow on the couch. He takes a seat, sighing sadly for Minhyuk. “We’ll be right there in the room if you need us.”

Minhyuk nods, palms burning against the soothingly hot cup in his hands.

Yet Kihyun stays, silent, just looking at Minhyuk concernedly. Minhyuk presses his palms harder against the heat, feeling it grow against his skin.

“The place gets too quiet without Dambi,” Minhyuk tells him in a low voice, averting his eyes. It could be that he doesn’t want Kihyun to know that Hyungwon sent him there, but he doesn’t know why he’s thinking of the white dog that used to bark in his place at this moment. How holding onto the collar his friends had put in his hand he was proven that he could be hurt even when he’s untouched.

 _Why make others pay the price for you to see how much I love you?_ The note on white fur had said.

 “Those nightmares aren’t real, Minhyuk,” Kihyun whispers, brushing his palm against Minhyuk’s cold cheek. “No one will hurt you, ever again.”

And he wants to believe that, so he nods understandingly.

Which makes Kihyun give him a comforting smile. “Good night.”

He turns the tv off then, gets up from the couch, and walks to his bedroom. Minhyuk on the other hand gets up too, walks to the door, and unlocks, and relocks it. When he hears a tut behind him he turns around unsurprisingly to find Kihyun at his bedroom door, arms folded.

“Go to sleep right after,” he tells Minhyuk routinely, then retreating into his own room.

Minhyuk does the same thing to the windows. Pulls the curtains close tightly. He doesn’t return back to the couch though, he just goes into the kitchen, takes the biggest kitchen knife Kihyun owns and weighs it in his hand.

He stares at the sharp blade, sees his reflection.

Could it be that someone else put another price on Hyungwon’s head again? Are they going to break into his apartment again?

He doesn’t know, and there’s no way to know. Because Hyungwon calls him with a private number all the time, and he has no way of calling Hyungwon. And he wishes he can be there with Hyungwon, instead of being scared in this empty kitchen, with a knife in his hand. He wishes that if someone tries to kill Hyungwon he’d be there, with this knife, and he knows he’ll run it through anything that tries to touch Hyungwon. As many times as he is able to.

He breaks down silently in the yellow lit kitchen. Knife clutched to his chest. Lost his voice.

Wants to be like Hyungwon, wants to render any man who tried to come close to Hyungwon unconscious too.

And the thought of the tainting color red returning to him, strangely doesn’t scare him anymore. Instead it fires him up, fuels him up that the thought of him dying under the blaring sound of sirens fills him with so much regret that he hasn’t run a kitchen knife through the very heart of the man who has beaten him.

And wherever that wicked man is, dead or alive, he wishes he can do that now.

 

 

 

 

The next morning he asks if Kihyun or Hoseok has baked cinnamon rolls before. Kihyun just gives him a sly smile, yet tells him he has never done that. Hoseok interrupts the conversation, telling Kihyun he should try. But Kihyun just gives Minhyuk his aunt’s recipe that he promises is the best cinnamon roll he’s ever had.

 

 

 

 

He sees Hyungwon again a few days later, when Hyungwon calls him with his usual private number, tells him to come over for dinner.

They talk about nothing as usual, and when Minhyuk’s washing the dishes, Hyungwon’s phone ring. The phone never rings, as far as Minhyuk is concerned. And Hyungwon leaves his side where he has been drying the utensils to take the call into his study where Minhyuk knows he isn’t allowed to enter, even without explicit warning from Hyungwon.

 Besides, Minhyuk’s pretty sure his study would just be filled with his job related things. He doesn’t feel the need to see those when the kitchen is equipped with so many knives of different kinds already.

He finishes washing the dishes, dries them and Hyungwon’s still in the study.

He tiptoes to the room, peeks through the gap of the open door from a distance.

“I don’t work for anyone,” He hears Hyungwon saying in a cold voice.

Minhyuk doesn’t know what kind of people Hyungwon deals with. But they all must be dangerous men. His life must be filled with them. Like Minhyuk’s too apparently.

He doesn’t want to intrude, not wanting to meddle into Hyungwon’s business so he goes into the bedroom.

It’s silent there, and he can still hear muffled sound of Hyungwon talking from across living room.

When Hyungwon finally enters the bedroom, his expression is cold, rigid. His gaze is sharp, piercing. So Minhyuk goes to wrap his arms around Hyungwon, savouring his warmth, and frame that he holds dearly with his own two arms.

He shivers in the comfort of Hyungwon pushing his hands under his shirt, brushing his back to pull him closer.

He feels Hyungwon’s bare fingers brushing at his shoulders. It’s soothing to think Hyungwon’s fingerprints are all over him. Covering the old scars on his skin with his own marks.

“Are you leaving?” He asks. “For another job soon?”

Hyungwon holds him tighter. “Yes,” He speaks into Minhyuk’s hair, that Minhyuk closes his eyes just to hear his voice better.

There’s a force that pulls his lips into a hard frown, that he doesn’t want Hyungwon to see.

“For how long?”

“I don’t know.”

Minhyuk feels the heat in his closed eyes.

“I’ll leave early in the morning. Call a cab to get home.”

Minhyuk hides further into the solace that Hyungwon provides. But at this moment it feels so distant. He can’t put a finger on why. Like a shoe box buried deep beneath the ground. Like he’s wearing leather gloves himself. Incapable of touching the real surface of things.

“I’ll stay here then, until you come back.”

Hyungwon shakes his head against Minhyuk’s hair, inhaling deeply. “You have to go to work.”

Minhyuk learned a new song with Kihyun. He likes the new song. It understands him. He thinks if he sings them fully on stage, he’d be telling everyone about everything.

“Hyungwon,” he calls, and gets a hum. “Do you love me?”

He lifts his hands, brushing Hyungwon’s back in the process and gently pushes him back by his chest.

Hyungwon stares at him, arms loose around Minhyuk.

Minhyuk looks searchingly into his eyes, and Hyungwon’s eyes have found him. Hyungwon doesn’t seem to have to search for anything. Because he knows where he keeps his guns, where he puts his knives. He could grab them in his sleep if he has to. Minhyuk knows that from experience.

And there’s that undecipherable look again on his face, something like a complicated expression, like a blank one too as if Hyungwon doesn’t really feel anything.

“Do you love me?” He asks again, voice breaking, a sob threatening to scrape up his throat as he loses what he’s looking for in Hyungwon’s eyes because of the pooling tears.

Hyungwon lowers his head, tries to kiss him, but Minhyuk shakes his head.

“Please, Hyungwon,” He begs, fingers clenched into two fists. “Please tell me.”

He thinks of the kitchen knife he’d clutched to his chest. Thinks of the bloodied man on Hyungwon’s apartment floor.

The return of the red.

He doesn’t mind it. Wouldn’t mind it.

“Hyungwon.”

He’s just pulled into an embrace, as he shakes, and trembles with all the force of an earthquake bubbling inside of him and the tears fall.

_“Do you love me?”_

Hyungwon’s hands are so secure around him. His stature firm, and reliable. Minhyuk knows he’s lithe, he moves without sound if he wants to, goes around invisible if he has to.

And Minhyuk feels so scared. He doesn’t feel safe anymore. Even with the number of locks on the doors, the loaded gun in Hyungwon’s drawer, his bathroom. Even with the knives he hides in the kitchen. And god knows what else he arms himself with in his own home.

He cries.

Because strangely he feels unsafe in the arms of a killer.

“I have to pay the price first,” Hyungwon whispers into his ear, fingers in his hair, against the soft skin of the back of his neck.

And Minhyuk couldn’t think of anything, just feels fear incapacitating him right there, creeping up every inch of his bones like it’s a permanent home.

So he keeps crying.

Wondering if the price is an unbelievable million, and at the same time if a million is too little.

 

 

 

 

Minhyuk wakes up.

Hyungwon isn’t there on the bed. His side has been made neatly. Sheets smoothed.

Minhyuk buries his nose into the pillow next to him. It just smells like his own cologne and shampoo.

He showers, running the soap on his shoulder and wishes it was Hyungwon’s fingers. He goes to find something to wear in Hyungwon’s closet as usual after.

Hyungwon has fresh, new shirts that he replaces every goddamn day if Minhyuk has to be honest with himself. He doesn’t know where Hyungwon throws away the shirts Minhyuk wore. And the ones he wears too.

He takes one anyway, because Hyungwon never stops him from wearing what he owns despite his habit of cleaning up everything as if erasing their existence. And it smells new.

On his way home he buys some groceries. And at home he takes them out one by one carefully from the bags in his small kitchen.

He bakes some cinnamon rolls, which took him two tries only.

Kihyun didn’t lie when he said that’s the best recipe he could ever have.

His phone rings. Wiping his hands on his apron, he looks at the private number flashing on the screen of his phone.

It puts a small smile on his face as he answers, expecting a familiar voice, wondering what he’d have for dinner.

It’s silent on the other line.

Minhyuk feels a little confused, listening to the silence to make out just about anything. But there’s nothing.

“Hyungwon?” He tries.

The other line hangs up as soon as he uttered the name though, and Minhyuk frowns at his phone, staring at the word ‘ _private_ ’ and realizing just how unknown it actually is, with how the usual voice greeting him is absent.

He doesn’t get much time to think about it, because he packs the cinnamon rolls neatly into a bag. He has to change, go to work.

There’s that new song he’ll be singing today.

On his way out of his place, he stops by the messy kitchen. Looks at the collar hanging on the fridge.

 _Dambi_.

Looks at that one good knife he owns.

Takes it. Puts it into his bag.

 

 

 

 

Kihyun tells him good luck before he goes up on stage.

He thanks Kihyun, and walks up to the stage to find the usual crowd, with some new faces who are eager to hear him sing. Hoseok’s at the bar, winking at him when their eyes meet.

Minhyuk smiles, and sings when the piano starts.

And it’s true, it feels like he’s telling everyone everything. And by the time he finishes the song, there’s a lone tear rolling down his cheek that he wipes away with a small chuckle, and there’s also a loud applause echoing in the bar.

“Your singing is beautiful,” Hoseok tells him on his way back into the waiting room.

Minhyuk blinks at him, surprised. But he manages a small smile, and nods a thank you.

But was it interesting? He finds himself thinking. What is the difference anyway?

Why had Hyungwon never tell him his singing is beautiful though?

Why had Hyungwon never tell him anything that matters, for that matter?

He takes off his makeup, says goodbye to his friends. Takes a cab to Hyungwon’s place, the cinnamon rolls safely tucked on his lap as he thinks about the call he receives earlier that day.

When he gets to the apartment complex he finds the door unlocked. Strange, but he’s sure it wouldn’t be as strange as the last time he had walked into the apartment through the open door.

It’s empty, he finds, stepping into the apartment and looking around. He holds the paper bag in his hand tighter, walks to the bedroom.

It’s empty too.

He doesn’t understand Hyungwon. He hates it.

Because when he pulls the closet open there are no shirts, no leather gloves. There are no loaded guns anywhere.

There is only one set of knives in the kitchen.

The curtains are closed, only one lock is locked on the door.

Taking a seat on the couch, he takes in the deathly silence of the empty apartment too.

And notices the briefcase on the coffee table in front of him. He pulls at it begrudgingly, frowning so fiercely when he finds the content.

And he takes out the knife from his bag, stares at it, at his reflection.

A million is too little, after all.

For something like this emptiness that he had never asked for. For the safety that he has found only to lose it again. To have those securing arms hold him but only for the last time.

If only fingerprints could leave marks, Minhyuk finds himself wishing. If only the fingerprints from Hyungwon’s gentle touches could leave marks on his shaking body, on his bare skin, like the old bruises and scars.

If only his lips would mark Minhyuk, so that at this kind of moment he knows Hyungwon was real. And he _is_ real, Minhyuk _knows_ that with his whole heart, but with this emptiness he might as well just not exist. Without his dangerous brilliance that Minhyuk’s just drawn to, feels safe with. Without his gleaming kind eyes. His gentle hands, his tender lips.

He wishes they could have left just any imprints, like how blood leaves red on his skin.  Leaves purples, leaves the blues. All the tainting colors.

Left him feeling something down to his bones the very least.

He just wishes he isn’t left in an empty apartment, with his stupid cinnamon rolls, untarnished skin and stupid broken heart.

Because it’s just severely unfortunate, how Minhyuk has finally found the love worth killing for, yet Hyungwon just never found the love worth dying for.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> so the request was,,, unrequited hyunghyuk and misunderstanding,,,,, and it totally turned out into a whole another thing after i wrote it im :/
> 
> @joohyuk, I hope you enjoyed it tho.. i admit there are some aspects i wished i had developed better for the request but i dont quite know how to cause im a headass askjdlasd and i didnt want to keep you waiting too long :'))) lastly thank you for enjoying my previous fic and leaving a comment to tell me you got the reference :'(((((
> 
> and readers, please leave me comments/feedbacks i love them i eat them for breakfast om nom nom


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